


We'll Make It Through Whatever

by mintpearlvoice



Category: Escape the Night (Web Series), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Best Friends, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Internet Famous, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, background calliope/mortimer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-05-20 14:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19378312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintpearlvoice/pseuds/mintpearlvoice
Summary: Matt has accepted the fact that his bestie Ro is dead. That he's never going to see her again.But it turns out the magic of friendship is stronger than death...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [canufeelthemagictonight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/canufeelthemagictonight/gifts).



Joey going offline around the anniversary of the time it all went wrong? Yeah, that’s not a big surprise. Even as a YouTuber, there are some things it doesn’t feel right to do in public- like mourn for the friends who became your family, the people you would have done anything for.

For instance: the Internet doesn’t know that Matthew is learning how to bake. It started as just something he could do without using his brain when he was too sad to do anything except play the video games of his childhood badly. Now he’s planning on bringing a perfectly frosted cupcake to Ro’s grave. Like he does every month. Only this month, it’s the anniversary of her death. (Midnight, when her family and partner have already come and gone. He doesn’t want to run into anyone except Stephanie today.)

Joey, though- he’s been offline for the whole summer. No one else is missing, he’s just ditched his phone, and Daniel isn’t telling anyone anything. Maybe that’s valid. He’s lost more friends than anyone else. Still, it would be nice to know that he was safe.

Matt is driving down a Los Angeles road under a darkening sky, heading towards the Inglewood Park Cemetery, a box of cupcakes on the floor of his car’s back seat. One galaxy cupcake, one mermaid cupcake, one unicorn cupcake, and one cupcake with golden sprinkles and a fondant YouTube play button. He always eats one while telling Ro about how he’s been. Not how much he misses her, because he doesn’t want her to feel guilty for dying, but how he always feels like he senses her presence, how her memory inspires her to be a better father and husband and friend.

At a red light, he glances at his buzzing phone. A text: a string of random numbers. At the next red light, he looks again.

It’s from Joey.

South America? Why would Joey want to meet him in South America? He pulls over and calls back.

“Matt- hey- this is Joey-“ He sounds out of breath, distracted.

“Joey?” Fuck, it’s so good to hear his voice again. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

Matt can picture him running. A crash in the background. “Uhh- this isn’t a good time. Just… please, Matt, come to the coordinates I gave you.”

“And you’re not calling the cops because…”

Joey’s bitter smirk is audible. “They’d be useless.”

Okay, valid. Matt remembers how the cops couldn’t do shit to stop a bunch of demon-enhanced clowns from slaughtering half the population of Everlock, for instance. But if just Joey is missing, surely he hasn’t gotten stuck in the past again. Right?

 Joey continues breathlessly. “Hire a private jet, don’t bring anyone except Nikita. This is a matter of life and death.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Matt wants to say. But just as he opens his mouth, the line goes dead.

The Matt of a year and a half ago would have called the police. Now he knows there’s some things too dangerous for even the professionals. He calls Stephanie instead- and then Nikita. They’re not exactly best friends. But she’s fearless, and under that bubblegum lipstick and bleach-blonde hair is a genius mind.

She picks up, first ring. “Matt? Has… has anyone else gone missing?” A tremor of fear in her usually casual and giggly voice.

He lets out a sigh. “This is going to sound really weird, but…”

“Lay it on me.” Her tone of voice implies: I’ve heard weirder.

“So I heard from Joey. He’s in South America, and he wants us to take a private plane to go meet him, I shit you not.”

Matt expects Nikita to protest. To be like “ohmigosh, are we going to get kidnapped?” But once again, she surprises him. “Okay. I’ll meet you at LAX in an hour- it looks like they have a flight to Buenos Aires. We can take the first plane out.”


	2. Chapter 2

The Society against Evil- which apparently now included Joey- had a plan. But that plan had left him and Nikita stuck out in the buggy, muggy rainforest for six hours, growing more and more frantic with every failed attempt to unlock the portal.  
And then it shimmered and reappeared.  
Matt had a wild hope that everyone he’d lost would come tumbling out. That Joey had actually for once gotten things right.  
When only five figures were silhouetted against the blue light, his heart sank.  
And then he saw her.  
Ro.

Bretman, Alex, and Ro. Mortimer, shaken and bloodied, trembling a little, and Calliope dressed in silver and white, her arms wrapped around him, her gaze daring anyone to come too close. No Joey, but- Ro.   
Her hair had frizzed out, her 50’s style dress was splattered with blood, she clearly hadn’t slept in quite some time… but otherwise, she looked all right.  
Her frantic gaze roamed around before fixing on him. “Matt?”  
Then she was teetering forward on perilously high heels, crashing through the underbrush. Falling into his arms.  
Ro. Here and warm and alive.  
She smelled just like he had remembered- flour, dog hair, but mostly her honey-lemon ladybug perfume.  
“Joey got sent to hell,” she babbled, gripping his forearms. “Tana killed Justine, Calliope killed the Sorceress, we had to torture people, I sent someone to hell, Alex strangled Destorm and threw up on the sofa- oh, Matt, I’m so tired, I just want to go home.” She collapsed against him, crying.  
“If Joey got sent to hell, he deserved it. I’ve had an unedited video proving it on my hard drive for the past six months,” he said, rubbing her back. And then, “Ro, it’s okay. We’re getting you home, I fucking promise. Everyone who’s made it, we’re getting them home.”  
Mortimer swayed on his feet, glassy-eyed. “Don’t even think about it,” Calliope said firmly. Her hands glowed, and he seemed more alert.  
“I want whatever that is. And also your eyeliner,” Bretman commented.  
“Later. But now he needs a hospital.”  
“Yeah, uh, he’s basically held together with duct tape and magic at this point,” Alex said, taking off his aviator cap and goggles and throwing them into the trees. Matt didn’t blame him. “My first aid skills are...” he made a wavy hand gesture signifying, ehhhh.  
“I have a Jeep just down the path,” the SAE member said. “Follow me. I’m more used to driving without roads than any of you.”  
As they walked down the steep hill, Ro clung to his side. This was where he wanted her- within arm’s reach, where he could protect his little sister, where no one could hurt her ever again.

The Society against Evil- and Jemma, the tough blonde who’d been helping them- had a ton of money, and eyes and ears everywhere. A few quick phone calls while they rumbled down the road, and when they reached civilization, there was an ambulance waiting for Mortimer (and Calliope, who refused to leave his side- Matt was pretty sure there had been something going on between them back in Everlock, but the way they were acting now just confirmed it. And, hey- was that Mortimer’s ring necklace glinting on top of her poncho? He couldn’t get a good look before they sped off.) and a van with tinted windows and full-blast AC for everyone else.  
Inside, everyone discovered a suitcase with clothes in their exact style and size. And, most importantly, plenty of food. When the van got to a hotel, apparently they already each had deluxe rooms. Ro kept looking around as they walked through the lobby. “It’s so many people! And they all look so happy,” she gushed. Matt didn’t even have the heart to tell her to pipe down so the paparazzi wouldn’t find them.  
Everyone was super pumped about showering; Matt and Jemma guarded the door. Ro went third-to-last and ran a bath. She’d always said there was no problem too big for a cupcake and a bubble bath.   
Jemma didn’t seem inclined to make conversation with a civilian, as she’d disparagingly called him when talking to Joey once; he was fine to just watch the hallway and listen to Ro humming last year’s hits. Oh, man, was she ever going to love Old Town Road.   
She’d evidently used up the last of the warm water. His shower was ice cold, but he didn’t mind.  
Jemma didn’t seem to mind either. But she didn’t seem to mind anything- that was just kind of, like, her deal.  
Next morning, they would receive a non-supernatural cover story from the Society, agree on details, and fly home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> according to her blog, ro's go-to travel perfume is apparently a rollerball of DOT by Marc Jacobs, the bottle of which looks like a ladybug... and let's face it, Matt is enough of a typical straight guy to not know any better
> 
> i love joey irl but etn-verse joey was responsible for a LOT of deaths and murder


	3. Chapter 3

The Four Seasons Buenos Aires was nice as fuck. They’d all gotten mansion-view rooms with big cozy beds (except for Matt and Rosanna, whose room had two twin beds) and a view of the hotel’s beautiful garden and the city beyond, plus free bathrobes and wifi. Everything was clean and cream-colored. Nothing was haunted. And for once, Matt thought he might get a good night’s sleep.

Matt wasn’t besties with Nikita. She cheered for his death and he munched on popcorn while she fought for her life, after all.  
But after Joey had dragged them both on a vampire-killing road trip over the holidays, he was used to her. When they traveled together, he’d learned to sleep lightly, listening for her nightmares. The scream that woke her, the sobs of “fuck it, I killed him, I killed my best friend,” and sometimes the thumps of her punching herself, desperate to expiate an impossible guilt.  
So he’d go to her room and be like, “do you want to make our dream homes in The Sims,” or sometimes just “you said I could call your therapist for you, this is one of those times, I’m putting you on speaker so you can’t break your own nose with the phone.”  
This night, Nikita had woken herself up early. He’d still been awake in the bed next to Ro’s, drafting debunks for the twitter war he’d doubtlessly end up in with Daniel Preda, who had no clue about Joey’s bizarre occult interests, or the evil that had lurked within him since that first deadly game, compelling him to slay friends and frenemies to preserve his own life.  
But this time, the moment Nikita’s first scream had died down- he’d been halfway towards the door already- he heard Brendan’s voice.  
“Girl, it’s okay, I’ve got you, I’ve lost someone too, I know how much it hurts. Do you want to do face masks and watch the Kardashians? You can cry if you want to, I’m not going anywhere. And neither are these face masks, because crying is super dehydrating and we both need to take care of our skin.”  
He wasn’t sure what exactly Nikita replied, but he could hear the laughter in her voice.  
Nikita and Brendan... that was going to be a hell of a friendship. Watch out, makeup industry, and watch out, world.  
So after a quick glance at Ro he closed his laptop, rolled over in bed, and went to sleep, knowing that Nikita was in good (and well-manicured) hands. He expected to sleep until at least sunrise.   
  
He didn’t expect jolting awake at three in the morning to Ro’s quiet sobs.  
They’d fallen asleep with the lights on, and he quickly climbed into her bed.  
“Hey.” He rested a gentle hand on her arm. “Nightmares, yeah? I know. They suck.”  
She just cried harder. Tall lamps casted strange shadows on the patterned curtains; lights in the street below made the shadows seem to move.   
“Talk to me, Ro.”  
“I can’t...” She shook her head, fluffy ringlets bouncing. “I can’t tell you anything.”  
“You can,” he said, just as fiercely. “That’s what I’m here for, Ro, come on, you know that.” Being with her filled in details that his memories had lost- the little dry patch of skin just below her elbow, the way she’d pouted when she couldn’t roll down the window on the Jeep, and how terrible she was at keeping big secrets. How much they ripped her up inside.   
For a few seconds she was silent, a small still ball of Ro.  
“I killed Joey,” she whispered.  
He wasn’t even sure if he had heard her correctly. “What?”  
She twisted her hands in her lap, fumbling for words. “There w-was a death challenge where we had to solve riddles to separate out poisonous plants from ones that are safe to eat... and then we had to cook with them and eat what we’d made. It was in the Middle Ages. And I recognized all the safe plants because they were culinary herbs or edible flowers, like rosemary and, and marigolds... and I let Joey put something I knew was poison into his soup and I didn’t say anything. It was him or me.  
I killed two people. And I helped kill Colleen twice.”

Hugging her might aggravate an injury- all the survivors had gotten pain medication for various hurts, but they might not have gotten enough, and it was just like Ro to hide her pain. He leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers.  “Ro, you were brave and you survived and you did what you had to do. You made it.”  
She dabbed at her tears with a bathrobe sleeve. “I don’t know if it was worth it...”  
“Of course it was. Your dogs need you, your boyfriend needs you, the worldwide void left by our collective loss of the original Great British Bake-off needs you. I need you.” He took her small, warm hands in his. “Ro, sweetheart. I will post complete bullshit clickbait for views any day of the week. But there are people in this world I will never lie to. My wife, my son, and you. So when I say that you deserved to live, I mean it. And I always will.”

“Thank you,” she whispered before leaning against him and bursting into tears. “You really believe those things about me- even after everything I’ve done-“

“Always have, always will,” he said, words slightly muffled by her hair. “Ro, I promise, I have proof. The man we knew as Joey Graceffa, who we called our friend, died as soon as he pocketed the deed to the House of the Cursed God. I have some audio about it I recorded…”

So Ro listened to her best friend’s voice as he played absentmindedly with her hair, because it was easier to reach than his phone. Finally, she understood why Joey had whispered “Thank you,” right before his death. Why there had been tears in her eyes, but peace in his.

They fell asleep in the same twin bed. Matt was closer to the nightstand, because tended to feel better with an enchanted crossbow close by. (When he slept alone, it was a pistol with six silver bullets and one normal one. Because if six silver bullets couldn’t kill an attacker… there were some fates worse than death you had to be able to protect yourself from.) Rosanna, though, had imprinted on the Blueberry-clone stuffie she found in her Society suitcase. She slept on her back, clutching Raspberry with one hand, the other firmly planted on her best friend’s heart.

Six silver bullets and two normal ones, Matt thought, and teach Rosanna how to shoot.


End file.
